CD Odyssey Disc 1710: The Scorpions

I’m a bit tired and it’s a bit late, but sometimes on the CD Odyssey you have to row when there ain’t enough wind to sail. This is one of those times. I’ll put my back into it, and we’ll see what results.

Disc 1710 is…Taken By Force

Artist: Scorpions

Year of Release: 1977

What’s up with the Cover? Once again we get a sanitized Scorpions album cover, after their original design was censored for being too…something. In this case the something was too violent, with the original depicting two kids shooting each other in a mass cemetery. If you’d like to see that, the internet is replete with options.

My copy is this mostly black version, with the band members across the top. It’s not worthy of a clever comment, and I’m not in the mood to be serious about why we have this cover in the first place and so…on to the next category.

How I Came To Know It: At some point a number of years ago my friend Spence got me digging through early Scorpions albums. I don’t like everything they did in the early days, but I do like a lot of it including “Taken by Force”.

How It Stacks Up: The Scorpions have 19 studio albums, but at this point I only have six of them. I don’t have plans to get more, but never say never. I had originally saved slot #3 for “Taken by Force” but the truth is, it couldn’t beat out “Lovedrive” and so it lands at #4. Here’s the full (now amended – for those readers of the “Lovedrive” review) list:

1. Blackout: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 290)
2. Animal Magnetism: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1194)
3. Lovedrive: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 1527)
4. Taken by Force: 3 stars (reviewed right here)
5. Love at First Sting: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 309)
6. Crazy World: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 702)

Rating: 3 stars

Early Scorpions can feel a bit weird to the uninitiated, and while “Taken By Force” isn’t the weirdest record, it does branch out into places musically that those who limit their knowledge to “Rock You Like a Hurricane” will feel surprising.

This record did not start auspiciously for me, with two of the first three tunes (“Steamrock Fever”, “I’ve Got To Be Free”) featuring a kind of garage rock vibe that I found a bit jarring. The Scorpions always have a metallic taste to their sound, but these tunes landed more on the tinny side of metal. The song wedged between, “We’ll Burn the Sky” was an improvement, mostly because of all the cowbell. Who doesn’t love cowbell?

I started thinking that I might have made a mistake, and hoping that this was the album with “The Sails of Charon” on it. Readers, my hopes were not in vain. More on that in a moment.

Track Four is “Riot of Your Time”, which gets the Scorpions going in the first of what would become a number of surprising directions. The tune is one third folk guitar strum jangle, one third driving metal riffs you know and love as the Scorpions, and one third Queen getting theatrical. In sum, it is a lot. It is overblown to the point of excess, but hard not to love, and better after repeat listens.

The song had me musing that maybe, on balance, I liked this record after all. And then “The Sails of Charon” kicked in. “Sails of Charon” is one of rock and roll’s great songs. Killer riffs, killer solos, killer riffs played at the same time as killer solos, and an irrepressible driving fury. A wave of guitar that invites you to ride across some sort of lyrically questionable storyline. Don’t worry what it is about – it is all window dressing for the power chord overkill and an anthemic what-the-hell quality that would make Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow salivate. At four and half minutes, the only beef I have with “Sails of Charon” is that it isn’t twice as long.

Remember, though, I promised many musical turns. After fully hooking me on a bit of traditional seventies rock/metal, the Scorpions hit you with “Your Light” a song that mixes their rock roots with a funky groove. Thin Lizzy meets Nile Rodgers. It is funky as hell but still tuff. ‘ere the end, there is a metal guitar solo somehow dumped on top of all that groove. A lot of sharp turns of style in this song, but every one works. This song is like a cabby that takes you down eight side streets during rush hour, avoids three stop lights and gets you home five minutes early.

A Scorpions album wouldn’t feel right without an overwrought ballad with an awkward title. On “Taken by Force” that song is “Born to Touch Your Feelings”. The first half is like a sixties folk tune, and the bridge is like a hard rock Oktoberfest. There’s some spoken word confessional stuff overlaid in the last third for good measure. I’m not sure it works as well as they think it does, but they go all in to sell it, and for a song like this, that’s enough.

Throughout it all, the musicianship of the Scorpions shines through. In fact, “Taken By Force” is their most technically interested record in my collection. The number of musical styles they incorporate is impressive, but more impressive is how they make them all work so well together, often within a single song. It takes great composition and even better playing to make that work, but they deliver time and again.

Best tracks: Riot of Your Time, The Sails of Charon, Your Light

CD Odyssey Disc 1527: The Scorpions

Despite COVID managing to partially derail my holiday plans (I had to self-isolate due to a close contact) I remain healthy and happy and have even settled into a restful routine.

Learning a new song on guitar has proven harder than I expected, as has establishing my top 10 albums list for 2021, but both remain works in progress. I’m even feeling the writing bug again (that is creative writing outside this blog). So all in all, starting to feel a lot better about this “take a holiday” thing, which I’m told is how holidays are supposed to feel.

Disc 1527 is….  Lovedrive

Artist: The Scorpions

Year of Release: 1979

What’s up with the Cover? The Scorpions have a history of album covers that disturb or offend, and this is one of those. The cover you are currently looking at (a metallic looking scorpion crouching on a generic band logo) is the one that they used after the original cover was banned.

The original album art featured what is at worst a sexual assault in the backseat of a car, and at best a wealthy couple with a gum fetish. It was their fourth album in a row to have its album art censored, an achievement I suspect the band rather enjoyed.

My copy of the CD is set up so you can fold the booklet to display either cover, depending on your preference. Now that you are forewarned what the original looks like, you can decide for yourself if you want to take a look. If so, you’ll find it at the album’s Wikipedia site here.

How I Came To Know It: My friend Spence encouraged me to explore early Scorpions albums and I liked a lot of what I heard. This is one of them.

How It Stacks Up: I now have six Scorpions albums. Of the six, “Lovedrive” comes in at #4. Those who have been tracking Scorpions may think this means that “Love at First Sting” (Disc 309) and “Crazy World” (Disc 702) are both ahead of this record, but that is incorrect. They have both been bumped further down the list (to #5 and #6) after a bunch of new Scorpions albums entered the collection. A full accounting of this will have to wait until I complete the final band review.

Ratings: 3 stars

Do you love power chords and the anthemic crunch of that rock and roll music? Maybe an occasional power ballad with some sappy lyrics? Well, so do the Scorpions, and on “Lovedrive” they have found their lane and for the most part, stay within it.

“Lovedrive” is an earlier record, and while the Scorpions have not fully transitioned from hard rock into heavy metal, the influence is very strong, and a sign of what would come to be defined as their sound as they gained international acclaim.

The stuff you would expect on any Scorpions record happens early, with the two opening tracks (“Loving You Sunday Morning”, “Another Piece of Meat”) firing furious power chords in your face. Like ACDC, the star of the Scorpions in many ways is the rhythm guitar, played by band leader and principal songwriter Rudolf Schenker. The driving power of his playing style makes both songs soar, with “Loving You Sunday Morning” easily the star of the record..

“Another Piece of Meat” is another classic Scorpions theme, as they recant a meaningless sexual encounter on the road. As the title of the song suggests, no one can strip the romance out of a ‘romantic’ encounter quite like the Scorpions.

Both these songs also benefit from the work of Rudolf’s brother, Michael Schenker on lead guitar. “Lovedrive” would be Michael’s final appearance with the Scorpions, and he plays lead on five of the eight songs, with newcomer Matthias Jabs coming in for the other three. Jabs is also a gifted guitar player, so the quality is present throughout.

Jabs handles duties on the Scorpions’ obligatory (for them) power ballad, which on this record is “Always Somewhere”. The Scorpions may or may not have invented the power ballad, but if they didn’t, they certainly perfected it. They once again make romance feel strong and full of machismo while still expressing all the tenderness of love that is wholly absent on “Another Piece of Meat”.

It also helps to have a great vocalist, and Klaus Meine is one of rock and roll’s greatest. I find “Always Somewhere” schmaltzy, but I forgive it mainly because Klaus has such a talent for making his version of “the feels” contagious.

The record has a couple of missteps, notably “Is There Anybody There?” which features a weird reggae beat that mixes awkwardly with the ever-present power chords. Imagine crossing the Scorpions with the Police and you’ll have an approximation. I also didn’t love “Holiday” which takes a long time trying to meld a slow section with a fast section, but never quite succeeds.

These are minor quibbles however, and for the most part “Lovedrive” is exactly what casual fans will expect from the Scorpions, with enough nuance to keep things equally interesting for deep-diving devotees.

Best tracks: Loving You Sunday Morning, Another Piece of Meat, Lovedrive

CD Odyssey Disc 1194: Scorpions

I’ve been rolling a lot of hard rock and heavy metal lately. Three of the last four albums are in that genre, including this next review.

Disc 1194 is… Animal Magnetism

Artist: Scorpions

Year of Release: 1980

What’s up with the Cover? This looks like the kind of cover that would have inspired the ‘smell the glove’ jokes in Spinal Tap. The Scorpions loved to push the boundaries on their album art, and “Animal Magnetism” is no exception.

If you think this cover is offensive you should know that it was their first album in the last five that wasn't censored in the United States. Whether you hate this cover, love this cover, or just love that some people will hate this cover, I’m not keen on censorship and I’m glad one of their covers was finally left alone.

How I Came To Know It: Like a lot of Canadians my age, I only really knew the Scorpions from 1982’s “Blackout” forward. My buddy Spence introduced me to several earlier Scorpions albums over the last few years, and this was one of my favourites.

How It Stacks Up:  The last time I rolled the Scorpions (February 2015) I only had three of their albums. Thanks to Spence’s encouragement and a little exploration I now have five, and I’m considering getting a sixth. Of the five I have, “Animal Magnetism” comes in at #2, easily displacing “Love at First Sting.”

Ratings: 4 stars

When it comes to the birth of heavy metal I look immediately to Black Sabbath as the father of it all, and Iron Maiden and Judas Priest as the two younger uncles. However, the Scorpions deserve a place in the discussion – maybe a fourth brother who we didn’t know as well growing up because he lived on the continent.

“Animal Magnetism” is a classic early metal record. On their earlier records the Scorpions had dabbled with the sound of screeching guitar riffs, and the almost operatic bombast that characterizes metal. Here, they go all in.

As much of this album eventually impressed me, the opening track “Make It Real” gave me cause for doubt. For some reason this track sounded a bit tinny, and felt a bit pop radio in its construction, despite the powerhouse vocals of Klaus Meine.

Fortunately, all doubt was quickly dispelled as the record progressed. “Don’t Make Promises (Your Body Can’t Keep)” starts like a burst of machine gun fire before quickly dropping into a crunchy guitar riff. It is also a great example of how lead guitarist Matthias Jabs and rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker play masterfully off each other. Schenker is the engine of these songs, brilliantly sitting in the pocket and infusing the music with horsepower. Jabs floats in on top, delivering some sweet runs that amp it up.

The best example of this is on “Twentieth Century Man.” The two guitarists know exactly how to make each other sound better, and it doesn’t hurt that Klaus Meine is one of metal’s great vocalists. The music has the cold strength of steel girders, balanced by the majesty of the anthemic song structures. It is like looking up in awe at a skyscraper and standing triumphantly on top of it at the same time.

If you listen to a lot of Scorpions you’ll know these guys really enjoy singing about sex, and many of these songs are straightforward appeals for booty with very little subterfuge about them. Meine is either singing about taking girls home, asking girls if they’ll come home with him or apologizing to his girlfriend for all those girls he’s taking home. Lines like these from the title track:

“You make me groove

I want you, that’s all I do

Make love to me right now

Love me ‘till I’m down”

Leave little to the imagination. Just written on the page like that they are hilariously over the top. When they’re accompanied by music they’re still pretty funny, but you forgive it all because of how righteously the songs rock out.

The Scorpions were early adopters (some would argue creators) of the power ballad. On “Animal Magnetism” it is “Lady Starlight.” It is a bit too hippy dippy for my tastes, but nonetheless has some pretty guitar picking and Meine’s vocals, where he briefly trades in his “let’s do the sex!” routine for some genuine romance.

Before long he’s back to being creepy. “Falling in Love” sounds like it is going to be romantic, but the way Meine gives off Bon Scott-like “eeuwww!” sounds makes it clear this isn’t love. Then right when you are expecting more of the same he throws in a falsetto “yeah!” like a sexual climax. It is delightfully gross.

The album features the band’s eighth drummer, Herman Rarebell which I mention because of the Spinal Tap overtones and because Rarebell does a fine job of keeping things organized and on time, with a sharp snap to his drumming that is exactly what the record needs. In a band that has had 11 drummers over its history, Rarebell was the man through much of their major success, including writing some of the songs and lyrics. He deserves a shout out for both his talent and his endurance. From 1977-1995 he was a key part of the band’s success, never once drowning in vomit – his own, or anyone else’s.

Best tracks: Don’t Make Promises (Your Body Can’t Keep), Hold Me Tight, Twentieth Century Man, Falling In Love

CD Odyssey Disc 702: Scorpions

This next review is an example of how sometimes I think I’m done an artist in the Odyssey, only to find myself inspired to buy another album.

Disc 702 is…. Crazy World

Artist: Scorpions

Year of Release: 1990

What’s up with the Cover? It’s a key for the door to some parallel universe. We know this because the door is slightly ajar on the right hand side and we can see it does not simply open to more scrub plain. The parallel universe that is slightly revealed looks pretty ordinary but I assume it’s as crazy as ours, given the title. Or maybe the universe where doors stand in the middle of the plain and serve as portals to somewhere else in the crazy world we’re already in. But I digress…

How I Came To Know It: I knew this album when it came out, but only bought it recently.

How It Stacks Up:  I now have three Scorpions albums. Of the three, “Crazy World” must fall to the bottom of the list. Since this is the last review of the three, here’s a summary of how I feel about all the Scorpions in my collection:

1. Blackout:  4 stars (reviewed at Disc 290)
2. Love at First Sting:  2 stars (reviewed at Disc 309)
3. Crazy World:  2 stars (reviewed right here)

Rating: 2 stars

This album is bittersweet for me. I bought it to be reminded of a great time in world history, but recent events make it harder to appreciate it the way I once did.

I am a child of the Cold War, and most of my teenage years were spent with the ever-present danger of World War III, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and assorted other nuclear terrors. In 1984, Iron Maiden even did a song called “2 Minutes to Midnite” which was a reference to the proximity of the Doomsday Clock to Armageddon.

So it was a special day for me in 1989 when I turned on the news one morning to see ordinary people clambering around on the Berlin Wall, tearing it down. I had never lived a day in my life without that ever-present symbol of war and here I was witnessing it, being destroyed by people who had simply had enough of living in a world divided.

I remember crying tears inspired partly by my fellow man’s ability to forgive and move forward as well as a fair bit of plain old relief. I settled down on the couch – skipping all my classes to just watch that God-damned hateful wall get dismantled, one tiny piece of concrete at a time.

The Scorpions are a German band, and so they had lived with the Berlin Wall in a much more visceral and real way than I ever had. In 1990 they released “Crazy World” with an anthem to commemorate the reunification of their long-divided country.

That anthem – “Wind of Change” – is why I own this album. For some, I’m sure this metal ballad is hokey, with its overwrought whistling intro and its candle waving chorus. I admire its sense of open wonderment that maybe the whole terrible Cold War was really ending. This song perfectly captures a moment in time when we all felt safe to dream about a better world again. As Klaus Meine sings it:

“The world is closing in

Did you ever think

That we could be so close, like brothers

The future’s in the air

I can feel it everywhere

Blowing with the wind of change.”

For us iconoclastic metal-heads, who had been weaned on a cynical embrace of death and war, it was an odd shift. Five years earlier, Iron Maiden had sung about the doomsday clock hands threatening doom. Three years earlier Megadeth had asked “Peace sells…but who’s buying?” Now we were now being told by one of our earliest metal legends to take a chance on optimism. It was a weird and welcome moment.

The rest of “Crazy World” is fairly forgettable – if inoffensive – eighties metal fare. At times it is even a little offensive – like the Frampton guitar effects on “Money and Fame” which sits very out of place on the album overall. Other than that, the guitar riffs are strong, but at times feels derivative of better albums that came before, like Iron Maiden’s “Powerslave” or Judas Priest’s “Defenders of the Faith.”

As a Scorpion’s album it certainly doesn’t hold up to the masterpiece that is “Blackout” and it falls short even of the merely OK “Love at First Sting.” Still, it matters to me. It shows that metal music can be hopeful and triumphant when it wants to be. This is something all metal fans have always known, but with “Wind of Change” the rest of the world got to see it too.

In fact, the second best song on this album is “Don’t Believe Her” which could easily be made into a pop hit if it had been produced with a bit more sweetness.

But as you’ll recall, I promised bittersweet. Given the trouble raging again in Eastern Europe it is hard to feel the same optimism I felt about this song even as recently as two years ago. Earlier this year the Doomsday clock ticked its way all the way forward to 1984 levels, and uncertainty again rules the future. Much as I love “Wind of Change,” it is getting hard to whistle along that close to our collective graveyard.

On this last listen, the song had me welling up for a very different reason. There’s no Berlin Wall to track our progress this time and those distant memories that Klaus promised us would be buried in our past forever are coming rushing back.

But then I reminded myself that the history of the human race is a river, not a series of arbitrary plot points on some clock. I listened to the chorus of “Wind of Change” with fresh ears:

“Take me to the magic of the moment

On a glory night

Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams

With you and me

Take me to the magic of the moment

On a glory night

Where the children of tomorrow dream away

In the wind of change.”

And I realized that while I draw breath, I’m still the children of tomorrow. We’re still here despite the odds twenty-five years ago. And even when I’ve blown my last breath, there’ll be another generation of children waiting to share the next magic moment like the one I experienced watching the wall collapse.

And “Crazy World” may be an average album, but it is never leaving my collection. Not as long as I can still dream away in the wind of change.

Best tracks: Don’t Believe Her, Wind of Change

CD Odyssey Disc 309: Scorpions

Here I am, still rocking this CD Odyssey thing like a hurricane.

Disc 309 is...Love At First Sting

Artist: Scorpions

Year of Release: 1984

What’s Up With The Cover?: An attractive woman and a contortionist embrace. He's tattooing her thigh as well, which in 1984 would have been pretty racy, but today is par for the course. Times change.

How I Came To Know It: In 1984 I was entirely devoted to heavy metal, and "Rock You Like A Hurricane" was a massive hit. This album was played at every party, listened to in every teenage boy's bedroom and belted out of ghetto blasters in the hallways of high school at lunch time.

How It Stacks Up: I only have two Scorpions albums, this one and "Blackout" which I reviewed back at Disc 290. I think "Love At First Sting" is the inferior of the two.

Rating: 2 stars

As I noted in my previous Scorpions review, this is a band from Germany that rocked the metal world back in the 1980s. I loved "Love At First Sting" as a kid, and it is odd that I took so long in buying it on CD (I only did so in the last few years).

Unfortunately, while the album has a nostalgic appeal to me, it is not as good as I remember it. Many of the songs are screechy, and the guitar riffs overall are not at the same level as 1982's "Blackout".

The opening track is "Bad Boys Running Wild", but the difficulty with English is noticeable here, with the chorus sounding more like "bad boys running wide", which unless the Scorpions are talking about a football game, doesn't make much sense.

On the plus side, this record is the home of one of metal's most iconic songs, "Rock You Like A Hurricane", which over 25 years later is still instantly recognizeable. This song has a screechy but brilliant guitar riff which became the signature sound of the band. While the album might've been everywhere, this particular track had its grooves worn out it was so overplayed.

I like how the song takes its time getting going, beginning with just the rhythym guitar and no other instrumentation, and then progressively adding drum track, and then lead guitar - it climbs to a crescendo of metal, and then settles back into a quiet groove for the first verse including such deliciously ridiculous lines like:

"The bitch is hungry
She needs to tell
So give her inches
And feed her well."

It doesn't even make that much sense ('she needs to tell'?), but all you needed to know in 1984 was that it was dirty. As the verses are delivered the song is stripped back down to just a drum roll, and then elements are added back in until we return to the guitar riffs ripping the air for the chorus. The constant ebb and flow of the instruments coming into and out of the arrangement gives the song a very cool flow.

Unfortunately, despite the brilliance of "Rock You Like A Hurricane" the rest of the album is decidedly average, with songs like "Bad Boys Running Wild" and "The Same Thrill" making very earnest efforts to 'rock out' but instead coming off a bit strained, with forgettable riffs, that try to make up for their inferiority by being played fast.

Overall the record is listenable and as a now 41 year old man, I delighted in having it blast out of my car as I drove around town. "Rock You Like A Hurricane" almost pulls the record into 3 star territory, but it can't quite do it alone. Thus, while I like the record, I can't pretend it is anything but average overall.

Best tracks: Rock You Like A Hurricane, Big City Nights

CD Odyssey Disc 290: Scorpions

After a Tracy Chapman album you couldn't get much more severe swing of the musical pendulum than metal, and that's what we have next.

Disc 290 is...Blackout

Artist: Scorpions

Year of Release: 1982

What’s Up With The Cover?: If a blackout is strictly speaking, an event that prevents you from seeing, then this cover would be a fairly stark depiction of the event. A man has had bent forks stuck into his eyes for some reason - likely as punishment for that awful seventies crowbar moustache he is sporting.

How I Came To Know It: I knew the Scorpions from my junior high days, when "Love At First Sting" came out, and while I knew some of the songs off of Blackout from parties and such, I hadn't really had a good listen to the record until my buddy Ross put it on one night when I was over at his place. I think at the time he and I were obsessed with "great side twos", and "Blackout" certainly qualifies. Anyway, I loved it, and bought it shortly thereafter.

How It Stacks Up: I am not a huge Scorpions fan, and only have two of their albums, this ones and the aforementioned "Love At First Sting". I'd like to get "Crazy World" because as someone who lived through the latter days of the Cold War, I have a soft spot for "Wind of Change" - it is a hard record to find. For now, of the two I have, I think "Blackout" is the better album.

Rating: 4 stars.

As anyone of my generation that doesn't live in a cave knows, the Scorpions are classic eighties metal band from Germany. My brother and I used to love watching them get interviewed on the MuchMusic Power Hour because their English was so atrocious. They would basically do a lot of devil horn signs and yell "rock and roll! Scorpions" into the monitor.

It is said that they recorded "Blackout" by singing the lines phonetically, rather than understanding what they were saying. I don't know if it is true, but it is a cool enough rumour that I've reprinted it.

Whether they understood what they were saying, they certainly understood music, because they lay down some furious riffs on "Blackout". Songs like "Blackout", "No One Like You" and "Dynamite" are rock and roll staples that sound as fresh today as they did nearly thirty years ago.

Outdoing all of these though is the six and a half minute "China White" which is so incredibly heavy, it holds its own against any modern metal song, without the benefit of later tricks of production.

At times listening to this album I found lead singer Klaus Meine's vocals a bit grating. He has amazing metal pipes, but at times he comes off a bit wooden in his delivery - likely a result of singing in a less familiar language. He also gets a bit shrieky in a way that contemporaries like Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford manage to avoid.

I have a strange association with the song "Dynamite", because when I was at University I used to attend this Creative Writing event called the "Poetry Massacre" which was basically a booze up of poets and English Lit types where atrocious poetry (original and dredged up) was read out at an open mike setting.

It was damned funny stuff - among the works I heard there, I can recall poems about an outbreak of genital warts among some free lovin' students, as well as an off-colour piece about a fajitas with uncommon ingredients, of which the less said, the better.

One year, a guy brought the lyrics to the Scorpion's "Dynamite" and read them deadpan, with no musical accompaniment. Since there is none more deadpan than reading them in a blog entry, allow me to pass along a passage from same:

"Get it now or never
Let's get it really tight
We'll make this night a special one
Make us feel alright
Put your heat into my body
Give ya all my size.
We gonna beat the beat tonight
Come on let's break the ice

"Dynamite
You're dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite"

As you can tell, I don't listen to the Scorpions for their lyrically prowess. However, their musical prowess on this record is enough to elevate them just north of 4 stars. If you only want to own one Scorpions' album - I'd argue this is the one.

Best tracks: Blackout, Can't Live Without You, No One Like You, You Give Me All I Need, Arizona, China White